


Too Young to Party

by cofax



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>October 1979; Fox and Samantha Mulder are both running.  Posted June 2000.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Young to Party

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Punk Maneuverability, Sabine, and Fialka

_October 1979_

Her right foot landed a little off, and the ankle began to twist.   
In a mid-step weight shift she would never be able to duplicate,   
she yanked herself to the left and kept moving. Now there was a   
twinge in the joint but she ignored it; she could run it out.   
Poison oak and raspberry thorns grasped at her from the sides of   
the trail, but she ignored them too.

She'd taken this path many times, so even in the darkness she   
could avoid the roots and stones. Her knowledge of it ended,   
though, where the trees and brush opened into the wide fields   
leading up to the fence around the base. Before her lay the   
unknown, but rather the unknown than what lay behind her.

They wouldn't notice she was gone for a while.

There might be enough time.

 

***

 

The tutorial had not gone well. He dodged through the swarms of   
students and bicycles on the way back to Magdalen. The backpack   
slipped off his shoulder and he re-adjusted it without thought.   
Maybe psychology was a poor choice.

Six weeks in England and what did he have to show for it? Two   
guilt-inducing letters from his mother and a grope in a cinema   
with a blonde from Essex.

He had crossed the ocean, stepped over the line demarking the   
unknown, into the land where the dragons were, because he had   
been so sure that nothing could be worse than home. He wasn't so   
sure now.

 

***

 

She had chosen the time carefully -- too early and there would   
still be traffic on the base, too late and she wouldn't be able   
to get far enough away. That little shit Jeffrey had finally   
gone to sleep about 9:30, and she had lain awake for the next few   
hours, watching the intermittent moon shadows cross the floor.   
Johnny Carson ended and the light in the living room went out.   
She gave it another hour by the bedside clock before she crept   
from the bed and pulled on her heaviest coat and the backpack.

She stuffed all her own money into her pockets, then pried open   
the green turtle bank on the bottom bookshelf and extracted   
fourteen dollars and some change. So it was his birthday money,   
big deal. She needed it more.

The window opened and closed smoothly; she'd been practicing. It   
wasn't too cold out, not like the bitter chill in her dreams, but   
her breath puffed before her as she slipped through the yards.   
She dreamed a lot, but rarely remembered anything. Sometimes   
there were people, and waves. Sometimes she could almost   
remember their faces when she woke up.

There was no point in thinking about that right now. First she   
had to get away.

 

***

 

There was a message when he got back to college. "Call your   
mother," said the note in his pigeonhole. It looked like that   
prick Donaldson had taken the message, which meant that she had   
heard all about the little incident in hall. He crumpled the   
scrap of paper and climbed the stairs towards his room.

 

***

 

She had decided she was old enough now to be able to survive on   
her own. For the past few years, she had been waiting for the   
time when she was tall enough, fast enough, old enough to escape.   
She knew all the horror stories about the life of a runaway. But   
it would still be better than this mockery of a home life,   
punctuated by half-remembered agony. And things had been getting   
worse; if she waited until she was grown she was afraid she   
wouldn't come back at all.

The tests came at irregular intervals, usually separated by a   
period of 4-6 weeks. She thought she was returned on a Monday,   
and two days later she felt well enough to start walking, then   
running again. Two weeks later she made her move.

Tonight she felt as strong as she ever had. The big problem   
would be getting over the fence without being spotted. There was   
no barbed wire above the metal mesh, and she was half a mile from   
the nearest gate. It would have to do.

The moon moved behind a bank of clouds; she raced out across the   
field and towards the fence.

 

***

 

He couldn't face dining in hall today; instead he threw on a   
jacket and went out of the college. After dodging around garbage   
scattered in piles on the rain-wet streets, he found himself   
below a poorly lit sign, with steps leading down to an open   
doorway. He plodded down the worn stone stairs into the pub.

It still shocked him that he could buy beer so easily. Was he so   
different a person than he had been in Massachusetts? He caught   
a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar and turned   
away. No different: still a morose and awkward American.

He drank a pint before ordering the special: a starchy stew with   
half a loaf of stale bread. It lodged in his stomach. If he   
were home, in October on the Vineyard, it would be crisp and   
cool, the leaves skittering across the yards, the maples curling   
scarlet in the cold.

And his father would be there, slouched on the porch with a   
scotch in his hand.

 

***

 

The fence was behind her now, and she was in the woods along the   
road. It was four miles or more to Willow. Then another few   
miles to the interstate, where she might be able to catch a ride   
to San Francisco. She walked carefully; if her clothes were torn   
or dirty she would draw attention.

Houses began to appear, the low-rent housing that surrounded all   
military bases, where the enlisted men and their families lived.   
It was late and the houses were dark, only a few dogs noticed her   
passing. Once a door opened and someone yelled; she jumped   
before she realized he was calling for "Zeke."

The temperature had dropped. She stuffed her hands deep into her   
pockets, hunching her shoulders up around her ears. It slowed   
her down, but she was getting so cold.

 

***

 

"Hey, aren't you at Magdalen?"

Mulder raised his head from the table, his brain twitching from   
the statistics. Oak Bluff High's mathematics department had been   
weak, and he felt way over his head with this.

Two vaguely familiar young men, wearing the students' uniform of   
jeans and T-shirts, blocked the dim light from the bar.

"Yeah," he said, dropping his head back to the text. They didn't   
move. "You're in my light."

"You're a Yank."

He'd already learned enough to identify the nasal whine that came   
with privilege. "Yeah."

"Chatty, too, I see." The first of them, somewhat darker than   
the other, dropped into the battered chair on the other side of   
the table. "I'm Tom, and this is Peter."

Mulder shrugged. "Mulder." Tom waved at the bartender for more   
beer. Warm British beer, not the cold horse-piss he'd spewed   
over the edge of the Costleys' dock last July. Peter sat down   
between Tom and Mulder, pushed the statistics text to the side.

"I'll get out of your way." Mulder pulled the book closer and   
began to gather his papers.

"Oh, give it a rest! It's Thursday!" Peter's beer arrived and he   
lifted it with a lopsided grin. "Besides, you have statistics   
with Jameson, don't you?"

Already bundling up his coat and backpack, Mulder paused, his   
attention caught. He looked closer. He had seen Peter before,   
he realized: the other student lived on the same staircase as he   
did. "Yeah, that's right."

"Well Jameson's aunt died and she won't be back til Monday. So   
sit your arse down and have a pint." Peter took a long draw from   
his beer and thunked it back down with a happy sigh.

Tom and Peter were about Mulder's age and much like him, but   
without the air of uncertainty and disorientation he had been   
wrapped in for the past six weeks. They looked relaxed, slumped   
in their chairs with no decisions before them more difficult than   
how many pints to drink tonight.

Tom, his black T-shirt proclaiming his allegiance to Johnny   
Rotten, ran a finger around the foamy rim of his glass and   
shrugged. "Your choice, mate. Do you really think studying   
tonight will make that much difference?"

October on the Vineyard was cold, he remembered. It was warm in   
here, if dim, and the beer was good. And he had the weekend off,   
to think about whether psychology was really what he wanted to   
do.

Mulder closed the book and sat back down at the table. "I'll   
have one of those."

 

***

 

Willow was behind her. She was walking east, and the rice and   
alfalfa fields were beginning to open up around her as the light   
spread. She hadn't moved as fast as she planned; it was almost   
dawn and she hadn't reached the highway yet.

There was no cover. She was on the side of a two-lane road,   
hemmed in by farm fences and open fields. Soon the traffic would   
start passing, people driving to Sacramento offices, trucks full   
of migrant workers traveling to the fields. People would notice   
her. She had to move faster.

Her legs were so tired now, but she managed to summon up the   
energy for a slow jog. The backpack bounced against her back and   
threw off her stride. She tightened the straps, snugging it   
closer to her body. It was going to be a long two miles, but she   
thought she might make it before the sun rose.

By dawn she was about a quarter mile from the highway overpass   
and the truck stop. The yellow poplars planted around the   
parking lot wavered in the heat rising off the idling tractor-  
trailer engines. One of the truckers would give her a ride. She   
would do whatever she had to. Anything at all. Somehow she   
would get to the city, and then no one would be able to find her.

The eastern horizon was ruler-flat, broken only by occasional   
windbreaks and transmission lines. As the sun crept upward and   
lanced into her eyes, she heard an engine behind her.

Shit fuck damn.

She had ducked and rolled behind a withering raspberry bush   
before she even looked at the car. Keeping her body low, she   
waited a long minute before raising her head out of the ditch.   
The morning sun dazzled her eyes but she could still see the   
silhouette of the Yolo County police cruiser moving away, three   
hundred yards down the road.

Samantha struggled out of the ditch and slapped at the mud   
crusting bits of yellow leaves to her jeans. That was too close;   
if the cops picked her up this close to the base they'd take her   
right back. She had to be more careful.

She was thirteen years and eleven months old, and she was never   
going back.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by Virginia (AliciaK, CazQ, Punk, Marasmus, Magdeleine,   
> Kelly Keil). Extra-special thanks to Magdeleine for one   
> particular verb.
> 
>  
> 
> _I promised the folks   
> I wouldn't keep her out late   
> Because she's too young to party   
> She's too young to date   
> So take your hands off her   
> You find yourself another   
> Or you're gonna have to answer to her big brother_  
>  \-- Michelle Shocked, "My Little Sister"


End file.
